


Us; Abridged

by Mythologiae



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, Freeform, vaguely historic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 19:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4637823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mythologiae/pseuds/Mythologiae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts with a gift (of sorts).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Us; Abridged

      It starts with a gift.

      It is 1866 and Romano can’t remember a time when he has seen Prussia since his old, less than pleasant times in Austria’s house. Even then, the Order had been little more than a nuisance, a brat with a sword and a tabard too long for her scraped knees and a scarred cheek that he felt was trying too hard.   
  
          (He hadn’t actually known that she was a girl until much, much later.)  
  
      One of her Princes is up for Spain’s succession, and she delights in teasing Spain with it, mostly because after being married to Austria for as long as he had been, she thinks she’ll be a far more entertaining wife. So Romano is surprised to find her at his door rather than at Spain’s, the Risorgimento in full force around him and Veneziano, for once, not far off.   
  
      Prussia doesn’t invite herself in, as he’s seen her do on more than one occassion in the houses of others. Instead she flicks her eyes over his frame, frowns as if an unpleasant realization has just struck her, and offers him a letter. He fumbles with the paper, moving to open it, but she stills his hands, her gloved ones a stark contrast against his skin, then lifts a finger to her mouth, shaking her head.  
  
      Not yet, her eyes say, the divide in their colors fragmented and sharp, and despite not being someone of a patient nature, Romano waits.  
  
 .  Prussia declares war on Austria not two months later, and when Romano takes this as the hint, he finds brief instructions in elegant penmanship, one word underlined sharply among the rest. Almost ruining the ink with sudden and unrelenting tears, he pushes the letter away, retrieving his own parchment to pen a response without even bothering to consult Veneziano. He only hesitates before sending it, provides his brother with the letter, Rome underlined heavily in Prussia’s steady hand and Veneziano doesn’t think twice.  
 

>        ** _for all things you care for, you must fight_**  
> 

  
      Prussia stands across from him, porcelain pale, white-blonde hair a matted filigree against sweat-flushed cheeks, and he can almost hear her teeth snap when she barks out a correction. She’s taking him and Veneziano on at once, and though Romano knows she corrects her brother less because he is better, has fought his own battles before, long, long ago while Romano has had Spain to take his licks for far too long, he can’t help but feel ever more like a disappointment.   
  
      Veneziano is dismissed, but Prussia stops him following with the flat of her blade, and her eyes are a storm, flashing like lightning, her voice a low, rolling thunder when she snaps--  
  
“Not you.”  
  
      The Germanic is merciless and brutal, but Romano cannot deny her effectiveness, not even when he begins to become distracted by the sharp white flash of her teeth between lips pulled in a smirk that’s all war-drenched anticipation; the sharp sway of her long hair over her neck as her blade clashes with his.  
  
      It is not until weeks later, watching her lead her troops, her breeches bloodstained and her boots muddied, hair pulled back in a long braid, that she flashes that same smile in battle, making Romano’s heartbeat pick up and fire to spark under his skin, and he realizes just how much more he’s getting from this than the land tied closest to his grandfather’s heart. The next time he sees her, there’s blood on her cheek and her hair is a flyaway mess, stepping through smoke and Romano’s heart still soars like he’s watching Venus rise from the foam.  
 

> _**until they rest; until a war will never again touch its shores**_

  
      Here’s how it resumes;   
  
      Her existence is fading and though no one else might want to think about it, Romano simply can’t stop. Other nations, other empires, have always ended, been put down by those who replace them. Maybe it’s a mercy, to die before you are truly dissolved, rather than continue on until you fade into a mundane shadow of all you once were. It is not a mercy Germany would ever consider, and not one Romano has the stomach for; but moreover it is not one Prussia will allow.   
  
      This is her end to endure, and she will do so as she pleases. They all know better than to think otherwise.   
  
      She picks Germany up from a meeting one afternoon, hair haloed golden by the afternoon light, and as she laughs with the bigger blonde, the resemblance is far more uncanny than it has a right to be; he wraps his fingers around her wrist and presses a note into her hand, sneers at Germany, and turns on his heel, leaving Prussia staring after, the beginnings of a smile on her lips.   
  
       _Rome_ , the note says, his handwriting as precise as he’s practiced it to be since his limbs stopped shaking of their own free will. When she meets him that night, her lips part in that near-forgotten smile, his heartbeat a sharp cadence (  _quick time, march!_  ) in his chest with her growing proximity.   
  
      “It took you long enough,” she teases, and her voice is once again the rolling thunder of a coming storm, and while the tremor down his spine is the same, he’s pleased to find a similar one when he answers her, barely holding back the storm she set brewing beneath his skin all those years ago;   
  
      “All good things to those who wait.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Quick thing I wrote for the end of Prumano week on tumblr.


End file.
